Friday, April 3, 2009

peekfrostings

Kosher for Passover Cupcakes - Charoses Cupcakes

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Kosher for Passover cupcake Photo disclaimer: The Kosher for Passover cupcake featured in the photo above was taken by the esteemed St. Louis food photographer J. Pollack Photography. However, the photshopping of the cupcake onto the Seder plate was done by me and he does NOT approve of such photo mutilation.
Charoses cupcakes will surely be the "wow" dessert on any Passover table. They are lemon-flavored Kosher for Passover cupcakes with baked-in charoses and topped with brown sugar charoses frosting!

Last year, I featured Kosher for Passover chocolate cupcakes. I got many comments from people complaining that they couldn't eat the cupcakes after a traditional Passover Seder because the cupcakes were dairy.

These charoses cupcakes can be served two ways. Without the frosting, these cupcakes qualify for a Kosher for Passover fleishig meal (no dairy); don't worry, even without the frosting, they are still better than macaroons. With the frosting, you could serve the cupcakes with a dairy meal.

Charoses Cupcake Recipe

I found the recipe that I used for the charoses cupcakes from Key Ingredient. I modified it slightly to make it a cupcake. I'm listing the recipe with my modifications below.

Makes about 16 cupcakes
  • 5 eggs, separated
  • 1 1/4 C sugar
  • 3/4 C safflower oil
  • Juice of 2 lemons (4 to 5 T)
  • Grated zest of 2 lemons
  • 1 1/4 C matzo cake meal (not matzo meal)
  • About 2 C charoses (Use my charoses recipe if you don't have your own go-to one.)
  1. Mix egg yolks and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy.
  2. In a separate bowl, combine oil, lemon juice and zest.
  3. Add matzo cake meal to yolk and sugar mixture alternately oil mixture.
  4. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.
  5. Using rubber spatula, fold 1/4 of the beaten egg whites into egg yolk mixture until well blended.
  6. Fold in remaining beaten egg whites.
  7. Fill cupcake liners about halfway with batter.
  8. Put a spoonful or more, of charoses on top of the batter on each cupcakes.
  9. Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Charoses Frosting Recipe

For my charoses frosting I used a basic penuche frosting (brown sugar frosting) and just added charoses to it. It's a bit gooey (kind of like the frosting on a German chocolate cake) - only even yummier (if you love charoses)! In fact, I just ate an apple and totally enjoyed dipping it in all the leftover frosting. I'm typing with sticky fingers now.

I got the penuche frosting recipe from Southern Food on About.Com. I used this same frosting minus the charoses on my Gluten-free quinoa cupcakes. The recipe made twice as much frosting as I needed. Unless you want extra frosting around for snacking, you could definitely cut this recipe in half.
  • 1/2 C butter
  • 1 C brown sugar, packed
  • 1/4 C milk
  • 2 C sifted confectioners' sugar (I only used about 1 1/2 C)
  • 2/3 C charoses (Use my charoses recipe if you don't have your own go-to one.)
  1. In a saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter.
  2. Add the brown sugar.
  3. Bring to a boil and lower heat to medium low and continue to boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
  4. Add the milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
  5. Cool to lukewarm. Gradually add sifted confectioners' sugar. (I would highly recommend sifting this confectioners' sugar. It's such a pain to sift, but it ensures that the frosting will be extra smooth.)
  6. Beat until thick enough to spread.
  7. Mix in charoses.
  8. Pour over cupcakes.
Speaking of Passover

Don't expect many new posts over Passover. I'll likely be passing over the blog during that time, but, you never know.

19 comments:

  1. These look like they have great texture. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. What a fabulous idea! Charoses is my favorite part of the Seder. Those spices, apples, nuts, and Maneshevitz--what a great combination!! I can't wait to try out these cupakes. They look and sound delicious!

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  3. That is genius! We always have so much charoset left after the seder. These look great!

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  4. Ground almond or finely ground hazlenuts mixed together with some potato flour is a good subsitute for wheat flour. Makes delicious cookies! I just mix together what ingredients might work... and it usually does. After all, nothing was perfect, wandering in the desert 4000 years ago. After all, that is what we are re-living, correct?

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  5. holy yum!! i cannot believe you made these. they are fantastic. i have been trying to think of a good dessert for my family's seder and this would definitely be a good one to wow the crowd!

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  6. I will definitely be making these!!

    Do you figure that you can substitute cake meal in most recipes?

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  7. Photog - 5/8 Cup Cake Meal = 1 Cup flour.

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  8. Sounds delicious! This should tide me over while I can't do "regular" baking during Pesach :)

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  9. Now these look interesting! I am intrigued!

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  10. another great cupcake project winner! looks like a great recipe for passover.

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  11. Hello. I've never had charoses before, so I didn't quite know how small the apples were supposed to be chopped. Do you usually chop it up in the food processor? I did a medium fine dice by hand, but I think it was supposed more ground up? I had some leftover charoses in my yogurt this morning, and it was great!

    I made these cupcakes for a friend's birthday on Tuesday. It was the day before Passover and I couldn't find matzo cake meal (the two stores I visited were sold out!), so I used 2 c flour instead. The cupcakes are very fluffy and very lemony, and my batch made 20 instead of 16. Two people asked for the recipe!

    Thanks for sharing your recipe. Happy Passover!

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  12. i wasn't able to find matzo cake meal on such short notice here in texas, but i wanted to make these cupcakes for a potluck seder i was attending, so i improvised some. i found a box of manischewitz kosher for passover sponge cake mix, which seemed fairly similar to this recipe, and prepared it according to the package directions, except i added the lemon juice and zest (as in this recipe) to the combination of the cake mix and egg yolks after i combined those. it ended up making enough batter for 24 cupcakes with a little bit leftover -- i filled each cup half way and spooned charoses on top like this recipe said, and i baked the cupcakes at 325 for 15 minutes.

    i also made the frosting in this recipe, but used earth balance margarine in place of butter and vanilla soymilk in place of milk so the recipe would be pareve. those are kitniyot, but my congregation does passover sephardi style so kitniyot is okay for me.

    it all turned out fabulously considering i was doing the last minute flying by the seat of my pants sort of thing. the combination of the charoset and the lemony cupcake is so wonderful! thanks for this recipe!

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  13. Libby - I typically use a food processor. It's a bit better with smaller chunks, though it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference. Glad to know that it worked well with regular flour too!

    Quixotic - Loved reading about your variation. Thanks so much for sharing!

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  14. If you make the penuche frosting and you want to be careful about it being kosher for Passover, be sure you use Pesahdik confectioner's sugar - everyday confectioner's sugar contains cornstarch to keep it from forming clumps.

    This sounds yummy. Charoset tastes great any time of year - I've even made a charoset pie!

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  15. my son was bummed becuase his class was having a cupcake bakesale this weekend (during Passover) to raise money for a class trip. We made these charoset cupcakes and he is so happy to get to sell them this weekend during our town's arts walk. THANK YOU--you makde one little Jewish boy in Olympia, Washington VERY HAPPY!!!!! And I bet all the Jews will be happy to buy them!

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    Replies
    1. sounds great but we are having meat at the seder so will need to sub out the butter. do you think i could use olive oil. or virgin coconut oil i try to avoid transfats

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    2. MJ - There is no butter.

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